Author Archives: metamegan

As Interesting as Oatmeal

Have you all noticed that I am doing NaBloPoMo again, for the 4th year in a row? After posting every day in July, and being told that quantity does not equal quality, I have been trying harder to be interesting and funny this month. SO interesting, that I already had to delete an entire post due to the fact that it was about oatmeal, and was very boring. You know the phrase, “You had me at hello?” Well, I had the opposite feeling about my post. It was like, “You lost me at: is making steel cut oats with all milk instead of water too decadent?”*** Oatmeal and decadent do not belong in the same sentence.

Then, I forgot I had deleted the post, and when Dave was making his oatmeal today without measuring anything I was like, “Yup – that’s what I was talking about. Playing fast and loose you with your oatmeal.” Dave just looked at me. I sobbed and said, “No one reads my blog anymore. Not even you. Boo hoo hoo hoo.”

Then I remembered that I deleted that post and I said, “Never mind. It’s just weird to me that you don’t measure anything. Isn’t it always too dry or too watery?” (and by “watery” I mean “milky”.) Dave said, “No, Goldilocks, it isn’t.”

See what I did there? I turned a boring post about oatmeal into something mildly interesting.

The end.

*** But can you make steel cut oats with all milk? I think I don’t like steel cut oats as much because I make my rolled oats with milk. Steel cut oats recipes are all mostly water with some cream or buttermilk and they taste watery. GAH. I can’t stop myself from talking about oats. And trolling for comments.

Apple Store, Part 2

One part of our disappointing trip to the Apple Store that was more “funny” than disappointing, was Jack’s comment in the children’s area.

By “funny”, I mean that I laughed when I should have been horrified. Can you get more Typical Boulder than riding your bike to the Apple Store on a rainy Saturday? Of course we went to Whole Foods on our way home, for free-range tofu. (Not really, we get our tofu at the grocery store that is closer to our house.) Oh wait, the typical Boulderite would probably actually drive their SUV to the Apple Store. Oh wait, we did drive that day. But it was in our fuel efficient car! Now I’m confused, are we typical Boulderites or not?

Regardless, why was my almost 4 year old playing educational video games at the Apple Store when he could have been doing experiential learning on a hike with hand made wooden toys, from locally-crafted, beetle-kill trees? And why for the love of God, did he have to loudly say, “I DON”T WANT TO PLAY THIS DORA GAME. DON’T THEY HAVE ANY VIDEO GAMES THAT GO LIKE THIS?” And then he made gun sounds and mimicked the action of shooting a room full of people with an AK-47.

And then I laughed.

Her Monica

I recently quit a job that required that I work night and day, weekends, holidays, the whole deal. Dave really picked up the slack with the groceries, and the kid pick ups and drop offs, and the general all around parenting. Consequently, I missed some turn over at the day care and I don’t know some names. My strategy here has been to pick up Jack and then ask him which teacher was playing with him when I got there. But I wait until we leave, and at that point, he doesn’t remember. Yesterday we peaked through the windows on the way out and I asked names. The wonderful, friendly, loving teacher that we saw through the window? Jack told me her name was Hermonica. I said, “Could it be Monica?” Nope. Hermonica. The worst part is that I am going to have to be told about 10 times before I can remember, and I think he tells me a different made up name each time.

Guess I’ll stick with, “Hey, you! Thanks for taking care of my baby!”

Fish. And Lima Beans.

That is the answer to the question, “What did MetaMegan make for dinner last night?” You know, the dynamic duo that kids LOVE. Two things I never would have eaten as a child, but what Luke requested for dinner. (Given other, various, not much better options.) I told Luke he had to pick some beans that he liked because I wanted to serve beans more often, and he picked lima beans. Well, the thing is, his Grandmom made some lima beans this summer that were actually delicious. (Note to self, get that recipe.) My lima beans were not as good, and I am not sure what went wrong. Luke choked his down, Jack ate one, and I scraped the rest off his plate and onto mine. Good thing, because right after that I dropped a glass into the bowl of lima beans and it shattered.

Everyone cheered.

Thanks Karma! Here is where I would link to the story about the time everyone cheered when my mom’s meatloaf got dropped coming out of the oven and spilled all over the floor and we got to have McDonalds instead. But I wasn’t blogging back then and I can’t link to my old diary. Of course, rumor has it, that meatloaf got turned into shepherds pie. I couldn’t really do the same with the lima beans because of the glass shards.

Oh, and the fish wasn’t good either.

She’s Craftyyyyyy

I thought it would be fun to do a craft with the boys today, and for once, it worked out! Usually by the time I get everything out and get everyone set up, they have lost interest. I have been wanting to create some sort of stamp forever, and since I don’t have time, skill, or enough creativity to do it, it hasn’t happened. But yesterday Jack needed me to write a thank you note for him since he had been to a birthday party and was really excited about the party favors. When I finished with the note, Dave said, “Make your mark, Jack.” And he drew an awesome little guy. An awesome little guy that was begging to be made into a tee-shirt design.

One trip to the craft store later, we were ready to do get crafty. I knew it would take me a while to make the stamp, so I used two secret weapons. The first was letting the boys each pick out some crafty stuff to buy. The second was inviting some friends over. Crafty friends, with longer attention spans. Worst case, they could entertain the boys while I finished my project.

Long story short, I turned Jack’s drawing into the stamp above, and we made two shirts. More are available to order as Christmas gifts. The eyes and mouth glow in the dark, fyi.

One of Luke’s craft supply choices were pom poms, and he decided to turn them into a comic. It’s too tiny to scan and share, so here is the dialog:

One day everybody was minding their own business when an evil pompom fell from the sky. Suddenly, more started falling. One person said, “I see an evil pompom plane.” One person caught an evil pompom. “Oof.” The evil pompom bit the person’s arm off. “Help”

So there you have it. A successful day of crafting.

Speaking of Bike Commuting…

Guess what America’s favorite bike commuting family did today! We drove to the mall! Not the far away mall, but the one that is sort of close, that you can bike to. As Dave drove around the insane madhouse of a parking lot, looking for a place to park there was a lot of, “I can’t believe I let you convince me to drive. You should have driven! This is insane! We should just park at our house and walk!” And so on. Call me crazy, but yesterday’s forecast for today was 30-40 and rainy/snowy. Does that sound like family outing to the mall weather? Why yes, it does. In a car. Of course, it was 50 and sunny, perfect biking weather, but you never know when that weather will change. PLUS! We were going to the mall to buy a new computer. Do you bring home a giant new computer on your bike, when it might rain? Well according to Dave, you don’t buy your computer at the mall anyway, you order it online. But I felt the need to have someone wait on us, answer questions, try to upsell us, wheel and deal, etc. Sadly, the answer to almost all my questions was, “I don’t know.” And the answer to “can we get one with these options” was, “Only if you order it online.” And, “I told you so.” That last one was from Dave.

Overall, a very disappointing trip to the Apple store. Except for one exciting thing! When we got there, I was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people, and I was ready to concede that it was a wasted trip, but then I remembered about the fact that I can’t plug a headphone jack into my phone so I decided to ask someone for help with that. A nice person said I needed a reservation and she could help me make one. The reservation was for 4:00 pm. This was at 2:30. It was then that I understood what the 275 other people in the store were doing. She asked if I could wait that long and I said, “Well I need to talk to someone about buying a giant computer and a bunch of software, so maybe.” Then she just took my phone and ran in the back and cleaned out the earphone jack immediately after she helped us make an appointment to talk to a specialist.

Diagnosis, “It had, like, a LOT of lint in it.” Super glad I did not have to wait until 4:00 pm to figure that out. And I didn’t even buy a computer!

To make it up to Dave for ruining his non-driving streak, I rode the xtra-cycle to the other apple store and bought all the groceries.

Bike Commuting

I posted this picture of Dave taking the kids to school on facebook and now everything thinks Dave is a super hard core bike commuter. (OK, it’s true, he is.) But do you know what is missing from this picture? The bike ride home. See, I planned to go to work that day, but after 30 seconds of scraping off the windshield, I remembered that I can work from home so I went in the house. Even though I had showered, and was wearing a skirt, and tights. And I had done my hair. So what happened later? Dave took the car to work, and didn’t make it home in time to pick up the kids. So I hopped on the bike, in a skirt and boots – not winter boots, but cute boots. Then I pedaled over to the daycare, picked up Jack and his sled, then went to school and picked up Jack. Yup – super hard core bike commuter, in boots and a skirt. No pictures to prove it, so you just have to trust me.

Who is in Charge?

The other night my poor baby boy came up stairs crying because he had a bloody nose. I took him into the bathroom and sat him on my lap while I pinched his nose for some period of time that seemed like an eternity but may have been less than a minute. Jack told me that I was pinching too hard and that he was fine and wanted to go back to bed. I thought, “Wow! He recovered from that scare so quickly. What a big boy.” Because I remember sort of freaking out about bloody noses as a kid. Of course Jack has more experience with them, living in this dry air, and living with an older brother who occasionally “hits him too hard with a pillow accidentally.”

I took Jack back to bed, tucked him in, laid there for a second until he screamed, “IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN” and I bolted awake and pinched his nose again. Some indeterminate amount of time later, he patted my arm and said, “That’s good, Mom. I’ll lay down and come get you if I need you.”

I trotted off to bed like a good little mommy, shaking my head at my big boy and his calm maturity.

I got in bed, closed my eyes and slept for 5-10 seconds before hearing, “MOM! MY NOSE IS BLEEDING AGAIN!!!”

This third nose bleed (ok, I am sure it was just a continuation of the first one) is the one that woke me all the way up. This time, instead of being in awe of the way my 3 year old can take charge of a situation I thought, “WHY AM I LISTENING TO A THREE YEAR OLD? Who is in charge here?” Not him, and certainly not me. So I turned to my good and loyal friend, my constant companion, the internet. It turns out, you are supposed to pinch a bloody nose for 10 minutes. Not a random about of time, or until your 3 year old gets bored, and you both just really want to go back to sleep. It’s 10 minutes people.

Jack and I sat on the couch, and I pinched his nose for 10 minutes by the clock on the microwave. Then we all went to bed and slept until morning. Thanks, internet.

Boulder Cup

Check out these two kids strategizing before the race:

I like this picture of the start because Luke told me his strategy was to never look behind you. He must have been getting it out of the way ahead of time.

And here is the start – Luke is number nine, sponsored by SpongeBob.

Here is Luke right before he got his jersey signed by Tom Danielson. Does that mean I can’t wash that jersey? It was in sharpie. I jokingly said I would embroider over the signature because he really doesn’t want me to wash it. Problem: Luke only has two jerseys and the other one is small enough that Jack can also wear it. Problem number 2: I do not know how to embroider.

I was wondering who that lady was that Luke was talking to in the picture, but then I realized it was me. I never wear baseball hats so I didn’t recognize myself.

And hey, look who came in third!

I chose this picture because you can see the Valmonster sticker on Luke’s bike. We sure do love Valmont Bike Park!

I’ve been checking 303cycling.com for pictures, and I found this great collection. Much better than the ones I took with my iphone.

Thanks http://dmoynihan.smugmug.com/Cycling2011-6/Boulder-Cup-2011 !!!

Halloween

Many, many years ago, I was a joint for Halloween, and my friend Joanne was Mimi from the Drew Carey show. We went to a party and there were a lot of Victoria Secret Angels there. The next year, Dave was Fidel Castro and I was Elian Gonzalez. My costume was just my terrible short boy hair cut, a disney shirt and a life vest. At the party that year, there was a sexy nurse, a sexy kitten, Pamela Anderson, and a Hooters Girl. The Hooters Girl was actually a man at least. The following year, I finally gave up and went as slutty Catholic School girl. If you can’t beat them, join them, etc etc. Especially before you have kids and you still fit into your grade school uniform. You can read a million blog posts about the slutification of Halloween, and a million facebook posts from moms of girls who couldn’t find a decent costume for their daughters, but I think the pendulum is starting to swing away from slutty and go back over to scary.

I was feeling particularly lazy this month, and I decided my costume, if I ever came up with an idea, should just be comfortable. We have been watching The Walking Dead, and we love the movie Zombieland (double tap) so I figured Dave and I were going to be Zombies. (Zombie is the new black.) But I wanted to mix it up a bit somehow. Like, Zombie Pioneer Woman, Zombie Catholic Schoolgirl, Zombie Mad Scientist. Then I thought, Mad Scientist would require less effort and makeup. I gave myself very aggressive angry eyebrows, put on a lab coat and goggles. That seemed a little lame, so I threw on my blond wig, and my striped tights. The goggles were annoying so I took them off. Then I thought! Witch Doctor! I made a tiny witch hat and pinned it to my head and put a stethoscope around my neck. Comments from my family before we left the house: You should just be a mad scientist. Your eyebrows are scaring me. You can’t tell that is a witch’s hat. My response: I don’t care.

But it was interesting because people couldn’t really figure out what I was, and I blame the years of slutty costumes. Most people guessed, “Some kind of nurse….” and the subtext was, “slutty nurse: yer doing it rong.” But my deviled egg costume from the year before prepared me for an evening where no one could guess my costume, so I didn’t care.

Happy Halloween!